Vickie - Day 4 (3/23)

A week in the life of a teacher, day 4
Thursday (or the day in which many things caused me frustration)

8:20-8:50 I arrive in my room and set down my stuff. I immediately see the note I left myself as a reminder and start to pull work for my 2 students who are in ISS-in school suspension (one is the student who left the room when the sub was there last Friday). I pull all their missing assignments as well as the work their classes will be doing today. I then check my email and the Daily Demon. I find the practice AP French exam and print off a copy so that we can start it in class today and realize that I do not have anything concrete planned for my level 2 students today and start to search the folder on my Google Drive that is full of material shared by other French teachers. (It’s a folder started by a Facebook French teacher group to share resources. I was kicked out, which is a fun story for a different day, but they never removed my Google access. 😊 ) I find some decent materials on French high schools but before I can print anything out, the 5 minute warning bell rings. I get my tardy things together, as well as the ISS work for my students and head to the tardy desk.

1st period planning: (8:55-10:25) The tardy station is busier than normal. As I write tardy passes, I jokingly point out to several of them that if they hadn’t stopped for Starbucks/Chik-fil-a/etc, they would have been on time. The smile, nod, and head to class with their cups that gave them away. I head downstairs after tardy duty and drop off my tardy list in the office, say hello to everyone. Then I walk down to the ISS room to drop off the work. One of the students is there and I quickly go over with her what the assignments are. She doesn’t have any questions so I head back up to the third floor. I start to make my copies of the practice exam when my phones rings but I don’t answer. I’m in the middle of cleaning up as my copies run. I try to make sure the work spaces stay clean so I am constantly recycling copies that have been sitting for several days, emptying the hole puncher, throwing away paper by the paper cutter, refilling the Xerox machines, etc. I know I’m not the only one who does this, but I often feel like I am the only one who cleans up. I also spend more time than I should unjamming one of the staplers that someone left jammed. I listen to my voicemail which is about an issue with a prescription and my insurance. I need to call them back, then I need to call the insurance. I keep the phone on speaker the entire time, lucky that I have my room to myself this morning (not having a travelling teacher in your room during your planning is a luxury). I am only able to sort of work on my French 2 lesson as I spend nearly 45 minutes on the phone. I head back to the workroom with less than 10 minutes to run some copies for my level 2 classes.

2nd period: (10:30-12:00) French 2. The phone call and attention I had to give to it have really thrown me this morning. I feel very unprepared. As students enter the room, I realize that I never changed their journal. I tell them it’s their lucky day and that we will move forward without one. As I take attendance, I comment that everyone is there and several students note that 1 is absent. When I tell them that he has transferred schools, several of them are disappointed and I let them have a couple minutes to process. I tell them that I will tell the French teacher at his new school how much they miss him and all the nice things they had to say. They quickly settle in as we look at slides that talk about the French education system with photos of a French high school and links to videos (thanks Google folder). They are engaged and asking good questions. After we go over the French grading system, I hand out an activity in which they need to interpret a French report card. It’s an activity that I am using for the ASW (Analysis of Student work) that that state has us do. It’s the first sample for a culture standard. The students struggle slightly at first, but as I circulate and answer questions, they quickly complete the activity. As they finish, I’m surprised to see that the period is about to end. I have students hand in the activity as the bell rings.

3rd period: Lunch from 12-12:25, class 12:30-2. As per usual, several of my AP and French 4 students arrive early to so some work and eat. I grab my lunch and do my attendance and check my email. One of the students is going over material for her AP Art History class. I used to teach APAH and loved it. She shows me what she is doing and expresses some concern for the exam. I give her tips that I used to give my students and show her the freerice.com website, where you can id the artists of paintings. For each one you get, the site donates rice. It’s not the most intense review, but it is fun and she keeps announcing how many grains of rice have been donated every couple of minutes.
 When we start class at 12:30, my French 4 students (there’s 3 of them), immediately grab their novels. One was absent last class and the other two immediately offer to catch him up and review with him. I thank them and let them work. My AP level students have been less than motivated and today is no different. I explain that we are going to take the practice AP exam so that I can grade it and then can focus their instruction and review on the skills they need most. We begin with the multiple choice. 3 of them settle in with no complaint. The rest complain and whine and I have to keep reminding them to be on task and to pay attention to the time. After we finish the reading comprehension, I offer them the choice of during the audio comprehension or the email response. They choose the rest of the multiple choice. Several of them pay little attention to the audio. I am very frustrated with them and tell them so. When time is up, we still have 2 audio selections left. I collect their work and feel very defeated. I’m not sure what I can do to motivate them.

4th period: 2:05-3:40 French 2. It takes me several minutes to get class started as many have chosen not to pay attention to announcements. As I try to start the slides, several of them are still talking. I offer them 2 options- stay in the room and pay attention or go out in to the hall to talk (and write me a paper). They choose to stay but also continue talking. Another student is having a rough day and instead of leaving her alone, several of the more immature boys have taken it upon themselves to question her and try to make her angry. At this point, part of me just wants to give up on the day’s plans, but I continue. I continue the lesson, talking in my calm teacher voice. The talkers settle down as soon as their classmates’ tell them in annoyance they can’t hear. We go over the slides and are starting to go over the grading system information for the ASW activity. The only interruption is when another of my students knocks on my door to tell me that she can’t come to knitting club today. It’s a few minutes after 3 and the fire alarm goes off. We all jump because it’s really loud. I remind my students where to go as several of them decide NOT to hurry out of the room and instead choose to put things in their bags. I hurry them out of the room (I know we’re supposed to have a drill, but they don’t) and shut the doors and make sure they are locked. I’m supposed to make sure no one is left in the hall so I’m normally one of the last ones out. As we’re waiting to go down the stairs, one of my students walks back towards me. When I ask what he’s doing, he says he needs to go and check on his phone to make sure no one took it. I respond that this is a fire drill and that he needs to go downstairs and the room is locked. His response is to tell me he HAS to check and he walks back to the room. Another teacher follows him as I roll my eyes. I watch him walk to the door, try to open it, realize it’s actually locked and turn and come back. It’s moments like this that make me crazy. Once I’m outside I find my students. I haven’t finished counting them yet for attendance and we’re signaled to go back in. I’m even more annoyed. What’s the point of having me take attendance and hold up a red or green card to let admin know I have all my students if they’re not going to wait until we’ve had a chance to do it. I’m also annoyed because I know that we’re going to have to go through the process of settling in again once we get back. As we get back to class, I hand out the report card activity we did in second period. I explain what to do. Someone asks me what to do. I begin to explain again, but before I’m done someone interrupts to ask what we’re doing. This whole process repeats at least 5 times. Eventually they get to work and all but one student is able to finish before the bell rings to dismiss them. As they noisily leave, I feel frazzled.

3:45-5 Several of my girls in knitting club come to my room. My phone rings and it’s my husband to tell me that Evie is having an off day- she’s complaining of a headache and even her teacher commented that she wasn’t her normal self. He puts her on the phone and when I ask how she’s doing she starts to cry. I really want to go home and comfort her, but I have students that need me too. My knitting girls are disappointed when I tell them that I don’t yet have the yarn dyeing supplies and that our meeting today is to set a firm date for when we will do the dyeing. I also need them to tell me if they prefer the thicker or thinner yarn. We discuss these things, while one of them pulls out her knitting. They’re very excited and ask lots of questions. As we’re talking, one of my French 1 students comes in. He comes to tutoring about once a week. Except for him, tutoring is simply him doing all the work he didn’t do in class and asking maybe one question. He works quietly while my girls knit and chat. I forgot to bring my own knitting so I decide to grade the multiple choice questions that my AP students did today. It turned out to be a mistake because all of my annoyance at the day turned to disappointment and then frustration at myself. 1 of them had only answered 5 of the 52 questions. 2 of them had answered all 65 questions even though we never listened to the last 2 audio clips, meaning they had simply filled in answers. The best score was a 24/52. In all honesty, I felt like crying by the time I was done. What can I do to motivate my students? How can I help them prepare for this exam? I feel like I’m failing them and don’t know what to do. A little before 5, my last student has left. I’m about to leave when my phone rings. I answer and it’s the insurance company following up on this morning. The whole issue this morning and their inability to solve it seems to be the result of some computer glitch and the supervisor’s boss or someone important has done an override so that everything is fixed. I thank the girl on the phone, but am still annoyed that I lost so much planning time to something that should not have happened. I head out the door, going through ideas in my head for my AP students and texting a friend for advice on how to motivate them. I’m looking forward to getting home and hugging Evie.